Wake to Darkness

by Maggie Shayne

  Sighted people don’t appreciate their eyesight nearly enough, in my opinion. Those who’ve always had it, I mean.

  We trooped up the hill, dragging a pair of red plastic toboggans behind us, Josh talking a mile a minute about the karate lessons he wanted to sign up for and all the things on his Christmas wish list, while Myrtle trudged right beside him, paying such close attention it was as if she understood his every word. She adored the kid.

  We reached the top. Josh situated his sled, then turned to Myrtle and said, “You want to ride, Myrt?”

  “Josh, she won’t sit still. She’ll wipe you out for sure.”

  “I’ll hold her,” he said. He didn’t precede it with “Duh,” but he might as well have. “Come on, Myrt. Get on here with me.”

  “She won’t like it, Josh,” I said, as Myrtle responded to his voice and plodded right over to him. She sniffed the sled thoroughly, then lifted her paws and stepped on board in front of him. “She’s blind. She’ll be scared.” If someone had said that about me, I would have punched them in the eye. I was being overprotective, and I knew it.

  “I’ll hold on to her. Come on, Rachel, she shouldn’t miss the fun just ’cause she can’t see.” He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around my dog. Myrt was facing straight ahead with her teeth showing and her tongue hanging out. She knew something exciting was about to happen. I recognized that look. She was eager. Up for anything as long as her eleven-year-old buddy was involved.

  “How are you going to steer?”

  Josh tightened his arms around Myrtle, then reached one-handed for the rope handle threaded through the nose of the sled, which children everywhere use to fool themselves into thinking they have a modicum of control as they rocket down steep, snowy hills. Myrt whined uncertainly, and he let go of the rope and scooted forward. “You’re gonna have to ride with us and steer,” he told me with a smile.

  “No way am I going to fit on that th—”

  “There’s room. C’mon, Rache, please? Try it. Just once.”

  I heaved a gigantic sigh and plopped my ass onto the sled. I stretched my legs, one on either side of Josh and Myrtle, planting my heels against the front of the sled, and reached around them to grab on to the steering rope that wasn’t going to work, anyway. What had I gotten myself into?

  Josh grinned at me over his shoulder, and I believe my heart grew three sizes that day. We all leaned forward and gave the sled a scootch or two, and the next thing I knew we were flying down the hill toward the back of Mason’s house. I heard high-pitched squeals and realized they were coming from me just before we all went over sideways and tumbled into the snow.

  When he sat up laughing, Josh still had my bulldog safely in his arms. Myrtle wriggled free and bounced in the snow, chest down, butt up, and wiggling in delight. She barked happily, and I knew exactly what she was saying: “Again, again, again!”

  Okay, so I was wrong. Doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

  I brushed the snow off myself and got to my feet. “I’m too old for this.”

  Josh stood, too. “Nobody’s too old for this. C’mon, let’s do it again.”

  “Yarf!” said Myrtle. Which meant, damn straight, we’re gonna do it again—and again and again until one of us is too tired to do it anymore. Three guesses who that’ll be, old lady.

  What? She’s a very verbal dog.

  * * *

  Jeremy was messed up. Misty could tell. He couldn’t look her in the eye for very long. Aunt Rache said when someone couldn’t look you in the eye they were either hiding something, incredibly self-conscious or too distracted thinking about something else. Misty thought it was the third thing. He had a lot on his mind. She had to do most of the talking, but she was good at that.

  “So where do you go to school?” she asked him.

  “Holy Family. It’s private.”

  “I go to public.”

  “Oh.”

  “Right here in the Point. Is that where you guys live?”

  “A little south.”

  “You a junior?”

  “Senior.”

  No encouragement to go on in his tone. Okay, whatev. She picked up a magazine from the coffee table. National Geographic. A good one to kill time with. Jeremy was kind of cute but a lousy conversationalist. “So what are you gonna do after graduation?” she asked after a bit.

  “I don’t know.” He picked up his game controller, restarted his game.

  Strike two, Misty thought.

  “Maybe you should think about being a cop, like your uncle. I mean, you must have it in you, the way you saved their lives and all.”

  “I wouldn’t want to have to do that again.”

  Eyes straight ahead on the TV screen. He must be good, to be at the level he was in the game. Her mom would say that was only proof he spent way too much time gaming. Whatever.

  “What was it like? Shooting that guy, I mean?”

  He froze, didn’t look at her, just froze, and then the gunshot sound effects went off and the blood spatter on the screen told her someone had just offed him. Game Over.

  He set the controller down and looked at her. “Not like shooting someone in the game.”

  She smiled encouragingly and nodded at him to go on.

  He shrugged. “He was just...he was. And then he wasn’t. I did that to him.”

  “It bothers you.”

  “Not really. I mean, he was gonna kill them. I didn’t have a choice. I’d do the same thing again. But it’s just...weird. How easy it happened.” He bit his lip, looking down. “Like how easy you go from being alive to being dead. Bam. Just like that. Like nothing happened, except you’re gone. You’re just...erased.”

  She nodded. “This is creeping me out a little. Maybe a new topic?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  He looked disappointed. Like he’d wanted to talk about it some more. “So...are you okay? I mean, you know, with your dad, and then that guy?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Mom made me go to therapy for a while after, but it’s all bull.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  “I mean, if you pay someone to listen to you...”

  “I hear you. And what do you say? You sit there trying to think up shit to take up the time, because you know it’s costing like a hundred-fifty an hour, and you wind up just making shit up.”

  “Yeah.” He tilted his head to one side, looking her in the eyes finally. “You’ve been to therapy, huh?”

  “Uh-huh. I lost like fifteen pounds during my first soccer season and Mom was just sure I was purging. You know.” She stuck her finger into her mouth and stuck her tongue out, the international symbol for gagging.

  Jeremy smiled. It was very faint, just the slightest uptick at the corners of his mouth, but it was the first one she’d seen since they’d finished breakfast.

  “Were you?” he asked.

  “No. And gross. A halfback runs an average of eight miles in a game. I was just burning it off, that’s all.”

  “Oh.”

  “You play?”

  “Not this year. Basketball, usually, but...not this year.”

  “I wouldn’t, either, if it was my dad. I’m really sorry, Jeremy.”

  “Thanks.”

  She sighed and, not sure where to go from there, got up and paced to the double sliding glass doors facing the backyard. Looking out back, she grinned so wide it hurt, pulled her cell out of her pocket and started snapping pics. “Ohmygod, Jer, look at this!”

  He twisted on the couch so he could see, then got up and came over to see better as Josh and her aunt Rachel came flying down the hill on a cheap plastic sled. The crazy dog was sitting right in the front, her ears flapping in the wind and her jowls pushed back so she looked like some kind of alien. “Aunt Rachel’s screaming her head off.”

  “Look how big Josh is smiling,” Jeremy said. “He loves that dog.”

  “I can tell. She looks like something out of Gremlins.”

  He sent her a q
uizzical look. “Gremlins?”

  The trio had reached the bottom and tumbled into the snow. They were already hiking back up for more.

  “It’s an ancient movie my father insists on playing at least twice a year. Says it’s a classic.” She grinned. “I’ve got to get a few more pics. This is too good. I can blackmail Aunt Rache for the next six years with this.”

  “Is it any good?” Jer asked.

  “What?” She was holding up her iPhone, waiting for the right shot.

  “The movie. Gremlins.”

  “Oh. Yeah, it’s not bad. Actually, it’s pretty funny. We should see if we can stream it.”

  “Right now?”

  They were coming down the hill again. “Myrtle is so completely Mogwai.” Misty snapped and snapped. Then she put the phone in her pocket and looked at Jeremy. “Maybe tonight, if we hang that long. We can order Chinese and go pick it up.”

  “Okay.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked away. “What do you want to do right now, then?”

  “See that other sled?”

  His head came up. He wasn’t smiling, but he nodded. “You really want to do that?”

  “Yeah, I really do.”

  “Guess we’ll lose our asshole status. First, though, can I see your phone?”

  “Sure.” She slid it from her pocket and handed it to him. He located the pics while she looked to see what he was doing, then he sent one to his uncle’s phone. She smiled. “Cool. He’s gonna love that.”

  “I thought he was into your aunt before. But then we stopped seeing her and he didn’t mention her name at all.”

  “I think she’s into him, too. Hell, we might end up cousins.”

  “I hope not,” he said, and then a flush of red went right up his neck and into his face. He handed her phone back to her, turned and headed for the coat closet.

  * * *

  Mason was on his way home when he thought to check the phone while he was sitting at a red light. There was a text from a number he didn’t recognize that included a photo attachment, sent hours ago. He opened it and grinned. Rachel, Josh and Myrtle on a toboggan flying down the hill behind his house. Rachel’s eyes and mouth were wide open, and her hat—no, wait, his hat—was in the air behind her, so her hair was like a flag. Josh was smiling all the way to his ears—laughing out loud, Mason thought. The kid was going to be okay. And the dog... The dog was all flapping jowls and ears and gleaming teeth. She was wearing her goggles and her winter scarf, and looked like she belonged in a steampunk creature feature.

  He felt something warm settle into his chest, and it pushed away the cold darkness that been squatting there before. He couldn’t wait to get home. And he thought what a great feeling that was.

  As he stared at the photo, realizing it had come through several hours ago, a car blew its horn behind him and a new text message popped up, this one from Rachel’s phone. Ordered Chinese. What’s ur ETA?

  He went through the light, then pulled off the road so he could reply. The other vehicle flew by him, and he secretly hoped for a speed trap up ahead.

  20 min, he texted back. Want me 2 pickup?

  Sent kids. C U soon.

  On my way.

  He looked at the phone for a long minute. Okay, there was some interesting stuff going on in his sappy regions at the moment. Stuff that bore further mulling.

  He clicked the button to make the shot his background image. It made him feel good to look at it, and Rachel’s books were always saying when something feels good, pay attention to it. It was good advice, even if she didn’t always practice it herself and claimed to think it was complete bull.

  He looked at her face, her full mouth wide open in a shout but somehow managing to smile at the same time. She’d relived a murder last night—lived it from the perspective of the victim. But today she was raising hell in the snow with her dog and his nephew. Yeah, maybe she didn’t think she practiced what she preached, but he was pretty sure he’d just been given photographic proof that she did.

  He put the car back into gear, and headed onto the highway and back toward home.

  * * *

  I had more fun that day than I’d had since I got my eyesight back—not counting my one-nighter with Mason, which was the most fun I’d ever had. Ever. By the time the younger generation had been thoroughly exposed to the genius of Joe Dante through Gremlins and Gremlins 2, we had spent close to four hours in front of Mason’s gigantic TV. The sixty-inch HD was his country home’s one concession to modern design. Everything else looked rustic, even though he was wired for sound. He had the fastest internet connection I’d seen—essential, he said, for gaming. And his nephews loved their gaming.

  We’d pigged out on Chinese, stashed the leftovers, and then re-pigged out between the two movies. We topped the evening off with warm chocolate chip cookies—the kind that came in preperforated squares you just broke apart and threw into the oven—and milk, because there was no point to warm chocolate chip cookies if you weren’t going to dunk them in milk.

  And then, as the credits rolled, I looked around and realized I wasn’t in Mason’s living room anymore. I was lying on my back on the floor staring at the ceiling of a room that wasn’t familiar to me. The light fixture above my head had a ceiling fan attached—but Mason doesn’t have a ceiling fan—ivory-colored blades shaped like palm fronds or something. It wasn’t running. I tried to get a better look around me, because my current view only gave me a glimpse of the ceiling and the upper two feet of the walls. Oddly, though, I couldn’t turn my head.

  Oh, shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit, it’s another dream.

  Something blocked out the light, and something else kicked me in the side, rolling me over so my right cheek was pressed to the floor, my right arm underneath my body.

  Wake up, dammit. Wake up!

  I felt something tear my blouse up the back, and I knew what was coming. The blade would be next. The cutting. I wanted to wake up. I wanted to scream. I wanted to scrunch my face up in fear, but I couldn’t move at all. I felt the warmth of tears welling in my eyes and spilling over, running along my nose and onto the floor.

  If you can’t wake up, then look. See what’s around you so you can remember.

  Hardwood floor under my cheek. Mint-green paint on the walls. A brown sofa with wooden claw feet and a crocheted blanket with too many colors to count. Black, white, orange, red—

  The blade sliced a path of fire across my back and lower left side, and every ounce of reason left me. Inside, my mind I was screaming. But I couldn’t even open my mouth. I couldn’t breathe. I lay there, completely helpless as the knife cut deeper, and I prayed for death to come fast.

  It didn’t.

  4

  1:00 a.m. Sunday, December 17

  Mason had dozed off on the sofa. The kids had taken every other seat in the room, Jeremy in the reclining chair, Misty in the overstuffed one that matched the sofa and Josh was in a beanbag chair on the floor. Leaving him and Rachel the sofa. He didn’t know if it had been intended or not, but they’d taken opposite ends, partly because the corner between the arm and the back was the most comfortable spot on any couch, but mostly because they didn’t want to get too close to each other. In his case, he didn’t want to slip up in front of the kids, absentmindedly start rubbing her leg or something. You could get into a movie to the point that your body sometimes acted on impulse without bothering to check in first. That was how you could crunch through an extra-large tub of popcorn in the theater, only to look down later and wonder who ate your snack.

  Like that.

  He didn’t know what her reasons were, but he kind of hoped they were similar.

  So he’d fallen asleep. And it looked as if they all had, except for Rachel, because she wasn’t on the couch anymore. Sitting up and frowning, Mason scanned the room for her.

  She was on the floor, facedown, with her head turned toward him. Her eyes were open—wide open—and there were tears streaming from them. Something was wrong
with her. Her entire body kept going rigid, then relaxing, then rigid again. Her dog was beside her, whining and pawing at her shoulder.

  Mason swore and dropped to his knees, rolling her over onto her back, moving on sheer instinct. “Rachel, what’s happening? What’s going on? Can you talk to me? Rachel?”

  He heard the kids stirring as he shook her, trying to rouse her. “Rachel?”

  She blinked, then her eyes flashed even wider as she sucked in a sudden desperate breath that must have filled her lungs to bursting. A nanosecond later she opened her mouth to scream, but he clapped a hand over it to keep her from scaring the hell out of everyone and put his face right in front of hers. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m right here. It’s okay.”

  She pulled away, scuttling out from under him. Then she sat up and reached around to her lower back, pushing up her shirt and running her palms over her skin. She was breathing fast and hard, her face damp with tears and sweat. And it was hitting him that she’d been having another dream.

  “You’re at my house, Rache. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

  “My back is bleeding.”

  “No, no it’s not.” On his knees, he moved closer to her, ran his own hands all over her back, up and down her skin, then brought them around and showed her. “See? There’s not a scratch on you.”

  She closed her eyes in obvious relief. “It wasn’t me.”

  Josh was still asleep, thank God, but Jeremy was up now. Misty, too, standing beside him. “Was it another nightmare, Aunt Rache?” she asked. She looked scared to death for her aunt.

  Rachel nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Can I get you something? What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

  “You don’t look okay,” Misty said.

  Jeremy crossed the room, opened a built-in floor-to-ceiling cabinet that was original to the house, reached to the top shelf and took down a bottle of Black Velvet and a tumbler. He poured and brought the glass to her.